How to unlock folders from old hard drives?

I bought a new computer when the CPU of my old computer suddenly failed. I pulled out the old master hard drive from my old computer. Hoping to retrieve some old important documents from this old drive, I put it in a USB hard drive enclosure and hook it up to my new computer using USB 2.0. I really do not want to open my new computer and install the old drive as an internal drive. The new computer is able to read this old drive with no difficulty. However, I am not able to access the "My Document" folder in my old hard drive. I have attempted to solve this by creating in the new computer the same user name that I have used in my old computer and log on using this old user name. However, I still cannot access the "My Document" folder in the old hard drive. Is there any way of "unlocking" this folder from my old hard drive (now connected to the new computer using USB2.0) without opening the new computer?

If this is on W2K or XP:
Log on with an admistrative account and right click the drive.
Select Proprerties | Security tab.
Click advanced and select Owner tab.
Tick the replace owner box and select the account you logged on with (quite likely there is no other)
Click OK.

if it's xp pro youre talking about, there are permissions you need to set using another computer running xp pro as well. i do this every once in awhule nd it takes me a bit of digging around to find the exact setting. good luck

If this is on W2K or XP:
Log on with an admistrative account and right click the drive.
Select Proprerties | Security tab.
Click advanced and select Owner tab.
Tick the replace owner box and select the account you logged on with (quite likely there is no other)
Click OK.

Click to expand...

YES, this is the means to fix the symptom, but all you need is to add FULL CONTROL
to the folder and check BOTH boxes at the bottom of the dialog.

btw: recreating the 'same user id' is not effective, as a new CLSID is created.